8 Steps to Twitter Training Basics: Ready, Aim, Tweet!

These Twitter basics are from the Tweriffic Twitter Training webinar that CCpro presented on 1/18/2010. In 8 steps you’ll learn how to use Twitter and to target your market and turn your Twitter account into a huge radio station of listeners waiting to receive your tweets.

1. Set up your Twitter account. Use your full name as your Twitter user name. It’s the easiest way for people to find you. Your short bio should describe your personal interests, what you do, and something about your personality. Look at examples to see how it's done. Try to stand out. Post a great headshot. A picture is worth a thousand words, so smile!

2. Add a nice background picture. Twitterimage.com has both free and some inexpensive background images. So do Twitart.com and Twitterbackgrounds.com. Choose something bright and attractive. Your goal is to attract people! You can also adjust the colors of your Twitter site using the "design" tab and create some pretty nice effects with no background photo. Keep it clean. No distractions. Just something that reflects who you are.

3. Start tweeting relevant content. Your goal on Twitter is to offer value, not shove your offer down people's throats. For every 4 tweets you do, only one will be a promotion, the rest should reference quotes, relevant ideas, bogs, articles or sites that offer useful information. Don't know what's useful? Start reading and reference what helps you the most.

4. Look for people who do what you do. Top Internet marketers are a good place to start. They have lots of followers, and those people will see you and might follow you too. Make a list of your favorite gurus, like Mike Dillard or Ann Sieg.  Ask around, and follow 20 of them. Then follow other people with lots of followers. You'll be surprised by who will suddenly be following you too!

5. Twitter has rules: Followers are what you want, however, you must "follow-back" 90% of those people until you have over 2,ooo followers. Then Twitter isn't as fussy. But until then, keep your proportions pretty even. Who ever follows you, follow them back.  And don't go crazy using automated following software. Twitter will shut down your account if you add more than 150 people to your list per day. So keep it under control and add about 1000 followers a week.

6. To be part of the party, it's a good idea to tweet 10 -15 times a day. Keep them fresh and informative. Use software to shorten urls (Bit.ly Shorten) so you can write more in every tweet. Your total for the week should be about 100 tweets. Make them catchy, informative, fun. It takes practice. So get started. Pick out one relevant topic per day to tweet about. Personal info is good too, so people can get to know the real you.

If you can't sit in front of your computer all day tweeting every hour, use "Socialoomph" to load up ten messages in the morning and have them posted for you through out the day. You can download the free version at www.socialoomph.com.

7. When you see people who interest you, start a conversation by sending a direct message. This is not a sales pitch. Your goal is to help them solve a problem, so ask, "What's the most challenging thing about your business?"  See where it leads. Relationships are where is all starts. Plan to start 10 conversations a week with other people on Twitter.

8. Twitter teaches you all the skills of an advanced marketer: discipline, how to target your market and write effective copy, build personal branding, how to offer value, and relationship building. All these skills lead to sales. Once you have a list of several thousand, it’s like owning a radio station and every tweet is like a commercial announcement going out to your listening audience. Someone will hear it and respond. The more you become a known personality, the more eagerly people will await your views, information and comments. This is the essence of Attraction Marketing. So keep 'm coming. And best of all, Twitter costs you virtually nothing!

To your abundant success,

Betsy Shulman

212 946 1026

www.elephantentrepreneur.com